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Mitt Romney Is No Jack Kennedy

INEVITABLY, Mitt Romney’s long-awaited speech on faith and religious freedom tomorrow at the George Bush Presidential Library at Texas A&M will be compared to John F. Kennedy’s 1960 speech to Protestant ministers in Houston, just 90 miles away. Like Kennedy, Mr. Romney faces questions about his religious beliefs and how they might affect his judgments as president. Also like Kennedy, Mr. Romney realizes — and polls demonstrate — that a sizable number of voters (again, mostly Southern white Protestants) oppose him because of his religion.

But the differences are more pronounced than the similarities. In 1960, Kennedy had already won the Democratic nomination and, as a Catholic, faced a phalanx of religious groups working publicly against his election. Among them was Protestants and Other Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, which was opposed in principle to any Catholic as president. An Episcopal bishop, James A. Pike of California, was its best-known spokesman.

Five days before Kennedy’s speech, moreover, a group of prominent Protestant clergymen headed by Norman Vincent Peale and L. Nelson Bell, the editor of Christianity Today and father-in-law of Billy Graham (Mr. Graham himself backed out at the last minute), mobilized the National Conference of Citizens for Religious Freedom specifically to block Kennedy’s bid. In addition, the Baptist state conventions in Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona and Texas had already voted to oppose any Catholic candidate for president. In short, Kennedy knew his adversaries, some of whom were seated right in front of him.

Mr. Romney, in contrast, faces no organized religious opposition he can allude to, no anti-Mormon campaign he can shame — as Kennedy adroitly did — for blatant religious bigotry. On the contrary, most Americans still do not know much about the Mormon Church, and many of them are willing to accept Mr. Romney’s assertion that Mormons are Christians, albeit of a highly unorthodox kind. Unlike Kennedy, he has no ready audience to convince.

In 1960, Protestants who opposed a Catholic in the White House had specific issues Kennedy could address. One was aid to parochial schools, which Kennedy opposed. Another was religious liberty, to which the Catholic Church did not give its official support until Vatican Council II in 1965. Indeed, according to John McGreevy, a historian at Notre Dame, Kennedy’s office had to consult with the Jesuit theologian John Courtney Murray to find out whether a Catholic could “support, in principle, the religion clauses of the Constitution.” Murray assured him that he could.

There are no such issues facing Mr. Romney. Mormons, having experienced government persecution for their beliefs and practices (especially the early practice of polygamy) are strong supporters of religious liberty and opposed on principle to accepting government funds for their institutions. If Mr. Romney wants to counter issues and false assumptions, he will have to bring them up himself.

Paradoxically, Kennedy was an indifferent Catholic, which is why there really was no reason to fear that he would take orders from the pope. Even the liberal Father Murray thought Kennedy went too far in declaring the total separation of his religion from public life. It was an extreme and ultimately untenable stance he thought he had to take.

Mr. Romney, on the other hand, has been a Mormon pastor and the equivalent of a Catholic bishop. Moreover, he is campaigning for the Republican presidential nomination at a time when candidates from both parties are expected to detail how their religion informs their politics — and answer to the news media if they refuse. Kennedy was spared having to explain Catholic doctrines that never mattered much to him. Mr. Romney’s challenge is to avoid talking about controversial Mormon doctrines that to him matter very much indeed.

Instead, Mr. Romney is likely to stress how his Mormon upbringing will make him a good president. And how those values are fully within the American grain. If he succeeds, there will be one less religious test for the American presidency.

But there is still one other difference between the two speeches. Kennedy engaged a live audience of doubters and bearded lions in their own den. It was high noon drama. Mr. Romney will speak in protected Republican surroundings, unable to engage a pair of adversarial eyes or read a single hostile face.

Kenneth L. Woodward, a contributing editor at Newsweek, is writing a book about religion and American culture since 1950.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on , on page A31 of the New York edition with the headline: Mitt Romney Is No Jack Kennedy. Today's Paper|Subscribe